I think bikes and trees have a lot of the same interests – trees clean the air of ozone and particulates for bicyclists, and provide shade in the summer, and often smell nice – but all too often I see bicycles damaging trees by locking to them. This may seem like a minor complaint, but bicycles can really damage trees by scraping their protective bark away and creating a source for infection. If you look for it while walking around in New York, you can’t help but find a lot of trees whose growth has been affected by such injuries. Most of the time it doesn’t kill the tree (or maybe I just don’t see those examples because they are removed) but it makes them sort of scraggly.
I feel like bicyclists are generally tree-loving people and I can’t imagine that a bicyclists, knowing the risk they putting the tree in, would continue to lock their bikes to trees. That is, I think it is ignorance that is mainly to account for the occurrence. (A lack of racks is also often to blame.) With this in mind, I am starting an educational campaign to end the practice. My plan is to make cards warning of the risk to trees and to carry them around with me and stick them on offending bicycles when I see them. The card is below, and the text of the card is based on the Parks Department website.
I feel a little namby-pamby about this – telling people what they ought naught do – and I worry about bicyclists reacting in a “fuck you, I’ll do whatever I want” type of way. I remember all too well the time I tried to leave leave little notes around to remind my college roommates to clean up after themselves and how that educational campaign failed. So I am trying to make the text as non-offensive as possible.
Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:
Thanks for riding a bike!
Please don’t lock your bike to trees.
Chains and locks can damage the protective bark and the cambium (inner skin) layer of a tree. The cambium layer transports sap, the lifeblood of trees, and is the most delicate part of a tree. Chains and locks can also leave a permanent scar on the trunk and leave an opening for parasites and fungus. Be tree-friendly and don’t lock your bike to one!
- from the NYC Parks Department website.
If there’s no parking close by, request a bike rack from the NYC DOT! Just call 311 or fill out the form online: http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/bicyclists/rackfrm1.shtml
Thanks! The tree would thank you too, if it could talk.
So, do you think this strikes the right chord? I thought NY Parks had a nice statement on their website and I figure quoting them suggests that this is a real problem.
